408 COSMOS, 



poetry have perished. It was not until the country had been 

 subjugated by the Arabs, and had lost its original character- 

 istics, that it again acquired a national literature amongst the 

 Samanides, Gaznevides, and Seldschukes. The flourishing 

 period of their poetry extending from Firdusi to Hafiz and 

 Dschami, scarcely lasted more than four or five hundred years, 

 and hardly reaches to the time of the voyage of Vasco de 

 Gama. We must not forget in seeking to trace the love of 

 nature evinced by the Indians and Persians, that these 

 nations, if we judge according to the amount of cultivation 

 by which they are respectively characterised, appear to be 

 separated alike by time and space. Persian literature belongs 



as for instance where Yisvamitra is described as leading his pupil to the 

 shores of the Sona. (Sisupaladha, ed. Calc. pp. 298 and 372; compare 

 Schiltz, op. cit. s. 25-28; Naischada-tscharita, ed. Calc. P. 1, v. 77-129; 

 and Ramayana, ed. Schlegel, lib. 1, cap. 35, v. 15-18.) Kalidasa, the 

 celebrated author of Sakuntala, has a masterly manner of representing 

 the influence which the aspect of nature exercises on the minds and 

 feelings of lovers. The forest scene which he has pourtrayed in the 

 drama of Vikrama and Urvasi may rank amongst the finest poetic 

 creations of any period. (Vikramorvasi, ed. Calc. 1830, p. 71; see the 

 translation in Wilson's Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus, 

 Calc. 1827, vol. ii. p. 63.) Particular reference should be made in the 

 poem of The Seasons, to the passages referring to the rainy season and to 

 spring. (Ritusanhdraj ed. Bohlcn, 1840, pp. 11-18 and 37-45, and 

 s. 80-88, 1 07--1 14 of Bohlen's translation.) In the Messenger of Clouds, 

 likewise the work of Kalidasa, the influence of external nature on the 

 feelings of men is also the leading subject of the composition. This 

 poem (the Meghaduta, or Messenger of Clouds, which has been edited by 

 Gildemeister and Wilson, and translated both by Wilson and by Chezy) 

 describes the grief of an exile on the mountain Ramagiri. In his longing 

 for the presence of his beloved, from whom he is separated, he entreats a 

 passing cloud to convey to her tidings of his sorrows, and describes to 

 the cloud the path which it must pursue, depicting the landscape as 

 it would be reflected in a mind agitated with deep emotion. Among 

 the treasures which the Indian poetry of the third period owes to the 

 influence of nature on the national mind, the highest praise must be 

 awarded to the Gitagovinda of Dschayadeva. (Riickert, in the Zeit- 

 schrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, bd. i. 1837, s. 129-173; 

 Gitagovinda Jayadevce poetce indici drama lyricum } ed. Chr. Lassen, 

 1836.) We possess a masterly rythmical translation of this poem by 

 Riickert, which is one of the most pleasing, and at the same time one of 

 the most difficult in the whole literature of the Indians. The spirit of 

 the original is rendered with admirable fidelity, whilst a vivid concep- 

 tion of nature animates every part of this great composition. 



